Class 170 External

A little WIP I've got going on, Textures are all from the old NWM route object with some modified to fit my model.

That looks very smooth!

As in good or bad? This is a wire frame of it, It's very easy on frame rates on my PC and makes no difference to it.

chrisrose1993 wrote:As in good or bad? This is a wire frame of it, It's very easy on frame rates on my PC and makes no difference to it.

Have you coded that all by hand or do you use a program?

After being away from the BVE scene for a while, the progress in regards to detail is impressive, I can create b3d/csv objects but not to this detail...

ap1991 wrote:Have you coded that all by hand or do you use a program?

After being away from the BVE scene for a while, the progress in regards to detail is impressive, I can create b3d/csv objects but not to this detail...

I would guess this be coded by hand. But let's hear it from the developer himself

Body shell was made in 3ds max (There's no way I'd be able to hand code that!! lol) with everything else hand coded

chrisrose1993 wrote:As in good or bad?

 Good!

Very nice

Have you considered using a separate mesh for the windows?
I'm not sure if you're planning on transparent windows or not, but with the number of faces on the front of that one, it wouldn't be hard to split the windows into their own mesh. The sides wouldn't be too hard either; Everything you've got is fundametally square, rather than the much more awkward round bits on steam locos.
If you're using transparent windows, it's highly desirable for them to be on their own mesh, as you'll find that this dramatically cuts down on the number of Z-sorting issues you'll see.

Complex hand coding isn't difficult mind, see the 81xx for a rather extreme point in question! (The only things that aren't 100% hand-written mesh there are the Cylinder commands)
Whilst I could built something like the above in 3DS Max etc, I could knock it up in a fraction of the time by hand, so horses for courses!

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Very nice mesh coming along there, In regards to the windows, id probably just use the front face mesh, add a set colour to it and then the extra value on the end, and translate it back by 0.05 and there is your window. rather simpler way of doing things.

But very nice non the less. You got plans for the interior or you keeping things simple?

No plans for an interior at the moment...

I'm unsure how to make the underframe look better? At the moment it looks too flat but I don't want to make everything 3d as I don't have the patience!!

Try making several planes. I think three might do the trick. From outside to inside:

- suspension
- bogie frame
- wheels

The short answer is that it'll never look as good as you like until you build the full 3D bits and bobs

This is what I'd be doing (roughly speaking) for a DMU like this-
Use one face for the front of the battery boxes, fuel tanks and associated bits.
You can probably get away with a single cube to hide the gaps, although I'd build the full complex shape.
Build the bogies separately as a 4-face square.
Wheels inside each bogie using cylinders.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Whilst your work is really, really amazing, Chris, I do not agree this to be the way to go for everybody. Starting with FPS drain, via the creation workload, and ending with the fact that from a cab POV (and that is what you do the very most of the time on a train sim!) for most vehicles the reason is hardly noticeable at all. With British vehicles it is slightly more than with continental ones due to your tiny loading gauge, but still...

What is not the right way to go?

I didn't say it isn't the right way at all, I just said it isn't the only/generally right way to go. And I was relating to Chris' ambitious all-3D-approach. It produces breathtaking results obviously, but it isn't neither necessary nor even very productive for many, many trains.

Blimey! It looked like TS2019 for a split second. Then i thought it was msts. Then i realised its bve. Where is this available? It looks very well done and the fact you created it using a program makes it outstanding for me. Congratulations.